


Take It All

by SteelLily



Series: Songs to Sail a Ship By [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5926471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelLily/pseuds/SteelLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mini fic based on the song Take It All by Ruelle.</p><p>This will probably become some kind of prologue for a longer fic down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take It All

**Astra**  
Conviction drove her to this, the unshakable conviction that she could not watch her people die. She knew she would be made into a villain. That she would be hated. She could live with that fate if it meant that the people she loved would live. She did not plan to survive. As long as her niece and her sister lived that would be enough. 

When Kara asked to see her, Astra needed one last chance to tell her that she loved her, to somehow impart that she was doing what she was doing to protect her. Astra did not expect Alura to have her arrested. Love blinded her. Betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow. Astra felt betrayed. It would have been better if Alura had her executed. Fort Rozz was torture. Astra wondered when Alura became so cruel. Her thoughts drifted to her niece. She sent hope out into the universe that somehow Kara would manage to survive. At least then it would be worth it.

The prison ship felt like—what the humans would call—hell. The worst of the worst Kryptonian criminals all piled into a suspended cemetery. The first assassination attempt on Astra’s life came hours after her arrival. Despite protests that she was not her sister, a pair of Hellgrammites ambushed her. The absence of a sun to draw power from put Astra at a disadvantage. The struggle ended with Astra snapping the neck of the smaller female, dislodging a stinger from her shoulder and ramming it through the eye socket of the taller female. By the time the guards followed the sounds of fighting to their conclusion, Astra stood alone, bleeding but victorious.

Once she and Non were on board the ship, it did not take much to turn their captors. Their fellow inmates were much harder to persuade. Where Astra could persuade with speeches, Non persuaded with brute force. Non’s tactics made Astra nauseous. He was an unfortunate, necessary evil. She tried to remember a time when she loved him. He grew ruthless as the years passed, preferring an iron fist to diplomacy. Astra believed that if you treated people like animals, they would behave as such. Non was content to wield a whip and break them.

The pod came careening past Fort Rozz one numberless day exactly the same as all the others. The ship was pulled along in the pod’s wake. The people on board the ship crashed against their metal cage as they were dragged. Astra clawed her way to the command deck. Her body, unused to such movement struggled to stand. She made it to the window in time to see a small one person pod pulling them out of the Phantom Zone. Her heart raced. She uprighted herself at the captain’s chair. She wondered who could possibly be in the pod. What force of will could drag them out of hell?

Only a few dozen survived the crash. They pulled themselves from the wreckage. Astra turned her face to the sun. Her eyes involuntarily closed and a smile spread across her face. Non moved to stand beside her. She turned toward him. She did not even recognize him anymore. Years aboard Fort Rozz had stripped him of his gentleness. All that stood next to her was a body full of rage. Astra knew she was not much better. The resentment she felt toward her sister had burned away most of who she used to be. She would never forgive.

Twelve long years of hiding. Twelve years of cultivating her army. Twelve years of planning. She failed Krypton. She would not fail Earth. The humans were blind to their course. It was laughable really; the way the lunatics and zealots refused to acknowledge the scientific data right in front of them. Humans did not deserve this planet. Why Kal-El insisted on protecting them from themselves baffled Astra, but then he had been raised amongst them. Bile rose in her throat. She would never forgive her sister.

 

 **Alex**  
“Be strong, Alex.”

“Protect Kara, Alex.”

The phrases etched themselves onto her heart. The weight of this responsibility nearly caused Alex to buckle in rage during those first years. It was not Kara’s fault. Kara never asked for any of this. Everyone knew the story of Superman’s home world. How it was destroyed. How he was the only survivor. Then came Kara. She was so very small for a twelve year old. Even without her parents’ demands, Alex wanted to protect the girl. There was so much wide-eyed innocence in her where, already, much of Alex was shrouded in cynicism. Alex was smart. Too smart for her peers. Too different. Alex built walls to protect herself from the venom of jealousy and judgment.

Kara always saw past the barriers. Alex sometimes wondered if it was a secret superpower to be able to read her like a book. After their father died, Alex tried to shut down. “It’s down to you,” their mother had told Alex, “Your father did what he had to in order to protect her. Now, you’re the only one left.”

Alex resented her mother. She could not help it. She thought college and distance would repair what was broken between them. It only exposed deep fissures in their relationship. She and Kara became nearly inseparable though. Alex confessed secrets to Kara that she had never shared with anyone. Kara did the same. They balanced one another and she treasured her sister.

The DEO trained Alex to protect herself and her sister. She knew she would only ever be human. She was not special in any way like her sister. Alex refused to let a thing like biology stop her from doing everything in her power to keep Kara safe. 

That goddamned plane. Alex’s nicely sectioned off worlds came crashing down with that plane. She failed. She failed her sister, her mother and the memory of her father. Now Kara would be in even more danger. Just because her DNA made her nearly invincible did not mean that she was invulnerable. Alex hated herself for being on that plane. 

Alex set about training Kara. Super strength could only get a person so far. Kara needed to be ready for whatever the world could throw at her. Perhaps she had done Kara a disservice by sheltering her too much. Her father was not ready for the world he went into to keep Kara out of a cell and under a microscope. Alex would make certain Kara was ready for the world she careened into.

The Hellgrammite was a surprise. The woman behind the bug was an even bigger one. She took Alex’s breath away. She was like the sun, the way she shone. Her bitterness was a finely honed weapon. It cracked against Alex’s walls. Her heart stirred in her chest. She thought she was going to die. She was ready for it in a way. Then Kara swooped in. “Aunt Astra,” Kara had said.

Those two words changed Alex’s life. So it begins…

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with the Phantom Zone situation. I don't like the idea of it as some suspended animation type situation. I like to think of it more along the lines of time passes without passing. Meaning they don't age but they still do stuff. Just go with me on that please. I have no canon on which to base that theory.


End file.
